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From: rhyde@maris.ucr.edu (randy hyde)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: pc532 costs
Message-ID: <13615@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Date: 16 Apr 91 19:42:39 GMT
References: <m0jSKSa-0001kOC@vector.dallas.tx.us>
Sender: news@ucrmath.ucr.edu
Reply-To: rhyde@maris.ucr.edu (randy hyde)
Lines: 32

My costs:

PCB - 200
CPU etc. - 550
ttl & parts (thanks, Steve, I still haven't sent the goodies back): $360
memory - $200 (4 megs so far, I'm waiting for 4mbyte simms to come down)
Disk drive - $800 (330 mbyte Miniscribe)
Case & pwr supply - 80
Minix - $170 (egghead, though I haven't bought it yet)

This is probably the bare minimum: about $2,500 (with solder and all)
I also bought lots of EPROMs and an EPROM programmer for another $200
(so I could try writing my own monitor, I'm still working on it).

I lucked out (or was unlucky, depending on how you want to look at it)
and picked
up a second board around here for $600 incl all TTL, CPU/FPU/ICU.  Most
everything
except sockets and RAM (sockets for TTL, that is).  Total cost $600.

Both boards pretty much worked right after assembly (parity still
doesn't work on
one of the boards, the other had an initial probably because I didn't seat the
SIMMs well).  All told, I've probably invested $3,500 in both boards
(still have
one case and disk drive to go, plus 32 megs of RAM when 4 mbyte simms come down
in price).  Gee- I could'a bought a NeXT!  Oh well, the 32532 chip is a
lot more
fun than the 68040, even if it is slower (btw, I program mostly in assembly `
language, and there are few machines as nice to program in assembly as the
32000.  That is the whole reason I bought into this system).
*** Randy Hyde